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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795167">Gleaning the Field</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanholidayinn/pseuds/romanholidayinn'>romanholidayinn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe - Freeform, Marvel Universe, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), black widow's trashed backstory that we all deserved, not canon divergence but not technically compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:55:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795167</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanholidayinn/pseuds/romanholidayinn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>glean<br/>/ɡlēn/ verb<br/>  -To gather leftover grain after a harvest</p><p>When Natasha sees all those orphaned kids, she knows she has to do something. She just didn't know how much she would get involved.<br/>***<br/>A work about Natasha's five years between Infinity War and Endgame. Based off of the scrapped story-line that we never got but certainly deserved.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Gleaning the Field</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So my first chapter is super short, but I will be making the others longer. This is my first published work so give me feedback! Feel free to message me on Tumblr at romanholidayinn with any questions, comments, concerns, or general greetings. Thanks for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t her first idea.</p><p>To be honest, it wasn’t even her second. But when Natasha watched the six o’clock news that night, saw all those kids standing out in the cold waiting in hours-long lines for food, she knew she found her third idea. And this one would stick even if she had to force it to.</p><p>Natasha remembered walking into her first shelter like it was a movie that didn’t stop playing. Dirt caked to once-rosy cheeks, shivers raking small shoulders, a girl no older than two crying for food as if she’d collapse right there. She knew it wasn’t from a lack of trying; these shelters were doing everything they could to feed uncountable hungry mouths. There just wasn’t enough money to go around these days. Governments rushing to divy up their borrowed funds, most of it funneling into big businesses to keep the economy afloat. Damn the economy. Natasha never understood why they chose business over lives. Looking around at all of these sad faces made it all the more palpable.</p><p>When she finally found the head matron, surrounded by a sea of unwashed heads, the woman looked relieved to say the least. Lines bored into her face like a sculptor had chiseled them himself after witnessing days of discontent. Her hair was akin to golden straw piled hastily into a half-decent bun, strands hanging uselessly around her face. The woman’s moss-green eyes looked far too burdened for Natasha to feel comfortable. Not like she was remotely close in the first place.</p><p>“Have you come to help?” The woman asked. Her voice sounded like she swallowed rocks and it made Natasha gulp on impulse.</p><p>Nat nodded. “Yes, but not...not like that. I want to take some of them off your hands.”</p><p>The woman blinked. Once. Twice. By the third blink, she seemed to have formulated a decent reply. “Uh, well. I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re not licensed by the state to--”</p><p>“No, I,” Natasha cleared her slowly closing throat. “I can help them find temporary homes. They can’t live in these conditions for much longer. Every shelter looks like this, from Wakefield to Tottenville. Please, my credentials are sound. I work for the government if that...if that helps, Miss…?”</p><p>“Emily,” the head matron replied. “Emily Grant. Now I- I know all about you, Miss Romanov, and as much as I would love for you to care for some of our kids, I can’t give you anyone on a clear conscience. Not until I get the okay from State.”</p><p>Natasha let out a nervous breath. She scanned the heads of all the kids who were now left without families to care for them. Literally gone within a snap. It wasn’t fair to leave them in a place that couldn’t guarantee that each child would eat that night. That each child would get a bed to sleep in or clothes to wear when their own got wet or muddy from the elements of a broken world fallen into disrepair. It wasn’t fair for Natasha, someone who was so unworthy of being called a hero yet was treated as one anyway, to walk away from this shelter with new hoops to jump through and without a single child to show for it. </p><p>So she didn’t.</p><p>It wasn’t like the shelter was keeping count, anyway. Emily wouldn’t mind. No one would, if they didn’t seem to notice the kids in the first place. So Natasha made her way through the stuffed halls, smiling at kids who happened to make a split second of heart wrenching eye contact. She kept looking. To this day she couldn’t tell you exactly what it was that she was searching for, but when she locked eyes with the right kid, she knew. This wasn’t a “grab all the toddlers you could and go” scenario. This was a “find the one who needs you the most” scenario. That was how she met Ethan.</p><p>Ethan was sitting in the very back of the mess hall, staring at the line for dinner as it grew longer by the second. At this point, the line was through the corridor and out into the street. Yet Natasha knew that he was there before most of these kids- so why was he not in line? She walked over toward him, eyeing the Hulk t-shirt under his grimy grey hoodie with a smile. His curly black hair was a mess under the hood, but his baby-faced cheeks were free of any dirt or smudges. Going off sight alone, he couldn’t have been any older than ten. Ethan took no notice of Natasha even when she was a foot away.</p><p>“Hi,” Natasha greeted him softly.</p><p>Ethan looked up at her and blinked, recognition lighting up his tired hazel eyes. “You’re Black Widow.”</p><p>Natasha smiled and crouched beside his chair. “That’s right. But you can call me Natasha. What’s your name?”</p><p>“Ethan Kovacs,” he answered in a slightly more animated voice.</p><p>“It’s nice to meet you, Ethan,” Natasha grinned. “What are you waiting for?”</p><p>Ethan looked out at the long line. His eyes zeroed in on one single person, making Natasha follow his gaze to a little girl in blue. She looked a lot like him; the girl had the same ebony curls and slope of her freckled nose. After a moment, the girl’s head turned and glanced directly at them. She smiled shyly and waved at Ethan. </p><p>“Is she your sister?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Ethan nodded wordlessly.</p><p>Natasha understood. She leaned back on her hand and shifted her feet so that she could sit on the cold linoleum floor of the crowded cafeteria. They both kept their eyes on Ethan’s sister like a hawk. In the fifteen minutes that it took for her to get her food, Natasha had noted three separate nervous quirks from her. She would grab and twist at her dirty blue tutu, then glance at Ethan, then rub at her nose. Ethan, on the other hand, was perfectly stiff and rigid. The only time he would move was to keep his eyes on her and wave back at her (Natasha counted ten waves). </p><p>Ethan’s a natural-born protector, she thought with a smirk.</p><p>As soon as his sister approached with a tray of pale mac and cheese mixed with small, cut up sausages, Ethan dropped his tight posture and grinned at his little sister.</p><p>“Hey, Olivia!”</p><p>Olivia giggled, lifting her tray up for him to see. “They gave me daddy’s dinner!”</p><p>Ethan helped her sit in the chair next to him and sampled some of the food himself. “Eh, not as cheesy. But still, not bad for their first try.”</p><p>Natasha marveled at Ethan’s easygoing composure under this situation that made even her want to get up and run. All of the other kids looked like they wouldn’t be able to last the week, but here was Ethan, keeping Olivia happy and healthy. She noticed just like Ethan, Olivia’s face was perfectly clean. The especially dark cuffs on the ends of Ethan’s sleeves proved to be the reason why. Natasha also watched as Ethan let Olivia eat as much of the dinner as she wanted, only eating once he made Olivia promise that she was really and truly full. There wasn’t nearly enough left for him, but he didn’t seem to care at all. Natasha knew better. She could see in the way Ethan’s chest rose and fell quicker than normal, or the way his eyes would always look up to scan the room, that he was scared out of his mind. Not for himself, but for Olivia. And when Ethan spared a glance Nat’s way, she could see a brief flicker of guilt pass over his eyes.</p><p>He was the one. Him and Olivia. The first step to her third idea.</p>
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